China has been an important player in the international economy for two thousand years and has historically exerted enormous influence over the development and nature of political and economic affairs in the regions beyond its borders, especially its neighbors.Sino–Malay
Derek Heng is an assistant professor of history at the Ohio State University at Marion. He is the editor of New Perspectives and Sources on the History of Singapore: A Multi-disciplinary Approach.
“For too long we have been dependent on inadequate translations of
Chinese court records to understand the shifting fortunes of
‘kingdoms’ and trade centers in Southeast Asia before 1400.
Archaeologists have been uncovering new data on the ground at
Southeast Asian trade sites, at manufacturing and trade centers in
southern China, and in the cargoes of shipwrecks from around the
South China Sea. What was needed was to bring these dynamic but
very separate fields of research together. Derek Heng has succeeded
in turning a ‘dark age’ into a coherent overall picture of the
changes that transformed the Southeast Asian hinge of world
commerce over four centuries.”
“It is Heng’s treatment of private Chinese enterprise in Southeast
Asia which complements the better-covered accounts of state-level
tributary trade. This is by far the most comprehensive analysis I
have seen—systematically investigating Chinese trade and shipping
at a number of levels, intra-regional, large-scale commerce and
small-scale, individual traders.”
*Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society*
“What is good about this book lies in the fact that it is well
structured, easy to read, and not overloaded with too many details.
Heng has clearly moved away from the purely ‘philological’ to
creating a complex historical model for Sino-foreign interaction in
the South China Sea—a construction that is fresh in kind and
certainly apt to ignite new research along similar lines.”
*Journal of Southeast Asian Studies*
“This book is a milestone in efforts, championed in recent decades
by Anthony Reid and many others, to break down the barriers between
the fields of Chinese history and Southeast Asian history.”
*International Journal of Maritime History*
“Sino-Malay Trade and Diplomacy from the Tenth through the
Fourteenth Century is a welcome and important addition to the
literature on the history of maritime trade during the first age of
global trade. Using a remarkably broad array of sources, from
Chinese and Southeast Asian written accounts through the
archaeological record (of shipwrecks in particular) to economic
sources which he skillfully mines, Professor Heng offers the first
comprehensive history of Sino-Malay trade in the pre-European
period. This is a notable achievement.”
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